Business Models for Sustainable Telecoms Growth in Developing Economies

A little more than 3 billion people have access to basic mobile telephony, with 48% living close to or below the poverty line. These people, the so-called ‘mass market’, lack access to basic communications technology. An ongoing issue facing communications providers is how to facilitate and promote communications access to those who live in rural areas of developing economies.

The authors utilize their considerable ‘hands on’ experience of working in successful telecommunications companies in order to address the challenges of creating, facilitating and maintaining sustainable telecommunications growth in developing nations. With this focus in mind the authors present a snapshot of these countries through real life case studies.

Sustainable Telecoms Growth in Developing Economies:

• Presents innovative and sustainable business models to address telecommunications adoption in developing countries.
• Identifies the inherent drivers and barriers in the mass-market adoption of mobile services in developing economies.
• Discusses the impact and importance of telecoms in developing nations including customer needs and Internet-based services.
• Highlights the current state of communications in such markets.
• Includes real-world case studies and interviews with telecoms CEOs from all over the world.

The author team provides decision makers, professionals, and application developers in IT, telecommunications and media with a thorough understanding of the current state and future evolution of sustainable telecommunications in developing countries. The book will also be of interest to advanced students in electrical engineering and telecommunications, analysts, and consultants with an interest in growing economies.

Sanjay Kaul is a hardcore telecom professional with over 15 years of telecom industry experience. he is currently working as Vice President for Multimedia & Systems Integration at Ericson Sub Saharan Africa. Prior to this Sanjay held a number of management positions with Ericsson.

Sanjay started his career in 1992 working in the telecom domain; he has a vast amount of experience in telecommunications and has worked on a number of telecom start-up projects mainly in Asia Pacific and Europe that included a number of underdeveloped and developing markets. He has been involved in a number of management planning, Strategy and operations development projects for both mobile and fixed operations, in a management consulting capacity. he has been an active contributor to a number of magazines and has written a wide range of publications for prestigious industry forums such as the ITU, Telecom Management Forum, Wireless Communications, IIR, Business Brief, CFMRR, Connect World etc.

Sanjay is quoted and has been commenting on a number of hot industry issues and has been a keynote speaker and chair in a number of industry forums and discussions.

Sanjay is a Telecoms Engineer, MBA in Marketing and has recently concluded his Management & Leadership Education at Harvard Business School.

Fuaad Ali is Managing Director at Habibi Enterprises International South Africa having expertise in Business Planning and Strategy, as well a s Marketing and Services Developments.

Fuaad has 20 years of telecommunications experience. Before joining Ericsson, Fuaad worked for Telkom SA, the largest fixed line operator in Africa. During his period of employ with Telkom he held a number of senior management positions in strategic areas of Marketing, Business Development, Government Relations, Human Resources and finally Strategic Planning. In the period he has been with Ericsson South Africa, Fuaad has done consulting work for Orange, Mascom and BTC in Botswana, Sentech consulting work for Orange, Mascom and BTC in Botswana, Sentech consulting worked for Orange, Mascom and BTC in Botswana, Sentech South Africa, Vee Mobile Nigeria, MTN and Nitel Nigeria and h as International experience of mobile and fixed markets in Africa trough his projects with African operators. Fuaad has travelled extensively in Africa and has first-hand experience of the African fixed and mobile communications markets.

Fuaad is a pragmatic person with strong acumen in communications marketing, Strategy and human resources development. He has excellent team and people skills. He is able to build solid relationships with customers and project team members alike. He was instrumental in selling and delivering multiple business consulting services to mobile and fixed line operators in Botswana, Nigeria and South Africa.

Fuaad is also the author and co-author of papers published in accredited journals and he has written a number of guides in marketing for the University of South Africa. He is also one of the authors for a textbook in International Marketing that is presently in print with Oxford University Press, South Africa. Fuaad has also chaired a number of organizational and government forums in South Africa.

Subramanian (Ram) Janakiram, is Champion, ICT for Rural Development of the E-Development Thematic Group in the World bank and a specialist in rural information and knowledge systems and rural development. He led the design and implementation of the rural information and knowledge system in Russia as part of a World Bank agricultural project - which is considered as a successful example of the World Banks='s operations in this area and is being used as a case study in Cornell University, USA. He has over 30 years experience in the design and implementation of rural development projects in over 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and Latin America.

He developed the strategy for World Bank cooperation with the Department of International Development (DFID) of the UK Government and program to develop a common framework and approaches for information and Communication for the development of rural livelihoods (ICD) at policy and operational levels. He represented the World Bank in the joint WB-DFID-FAO missions to Armenia and Vietnam and identified areas for Bank intervention in the ICD program. He has led discussions on information and knowledge management issues in rural development operations and on e-development for economic growth and poverty reduction during the 2004 Program of Seminars in the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meetings He has made several invited presentations in national and international conferences on the role of information and communication technologies in rural development and e-government.

He obtained a spot award for an outstanding contribution to the world bank's Information Solutions work program in 2004. He holds a Master's degree in water resources management and agricultural economics from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA and Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering from regional Engineering College, Durgapur, India. His work philosophy is team work and consensus building to achieve results.

Bengt Wattenstrom is Director of Business development at Ericsson where he has been since 1995. During his time at Ericsson he has worked in various positions and in different parts of the world. The last couple of years he has focused on developing new Business Models especially for emerging markets globally. One example of a new Business Model is being set up in Tanzania.

Before joining Ericsson bengt worked in the Computer industry for 25 years. Bengt worked for companies such as IBM, Digital Equipment and Computervision. He has during this time learnt a lot about how market changes impact corporations and their ability to develop and survive.

Bengt has an extensive background in building/driving Services business's internationally both in the IT world and the telecom world. This includes everything from developing Business/Strategies to implementing them. This means working both at central and local levels to drive the business cultural change from a box selling Company to a Solution selling Company. During his career bengt has spent a majority of his time in Services developing Services to a Business in it's own right.

Bengt has an educational background from Harvard Business School as well as INSEAD in France.